Collection: The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Ebbot Lundberg (vocals) and Bjorn Olsson (guitar) were founders of the wildly exciting Swedish band Union Carbide Productions, which recorded several albums that mixed Captain Beefheart and punk (think Stooges) to wonderful effect in the late '80s. Eventually Ian Person joined Union Carbide Productions on guitar. 

By this point, however, Lundberg was becoming influenced by Love and other late-'60s psych-pop bands and was steering the band in this direction, causing friction within the band. 

After several albums in this new direction, Union Carbide Productions imploded, and the bandmembers went in their own directions. 

Lundberg, Olsson, and Person reunited in 1995 and started the band Soundtrack of Our Lives, which mines the '60s psych vein in unique, unpredictable, and interesting ways. Never sounding like a retro act, Soundtrack of Our Lives is a thoroughly modern band that is actually extending '60s themes and ideas in ways that acts from that time never imagined. 

The Homo Habilis Blues EP was released in 1996, followed by the full-length Welcome to the Infant Freebase that same year, after which Olsson left the touring aspect of the band to the other members (he remained a part of the band in the studio, while maintaining his own solo career). 

Work on a second album commenced in 1998, and the band released Extended Revelation for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization late that year. 

The new millennium found the Soundtrack of Our Lives with an American contract through Universal's Republic subsidiary, which released 2001's Behind the Music and 2005's Origin, Vol. 1. This was followed by the extensive multi-disc retrospective Present from the Past in 2006 and the EP Bonus Future Excerpts CD in 2008, as well as the singles "Thrill Me" b/w "Swim Like a Bird (This One Has Not Flown)" and "Uptopia" b/w "Just a Brother." 

Also in 2008, the Soundtrack of Our Lives released the stellar double album Communion, which appeared on Yep Roc in the United States. The single "Karmageddon" followed in 2010 as a precursor to Golden Greats No. 1, another compilation that included EP, single, and album tracks from throughout the band's recorded history. (All Music Guide)

Billboard: "Some of the most extraordinary rock music you're likely to hear this year... Currently a sextet, the Soundtrack shows a remarkable facility for emulsifying a wide panoply of post-'60s rock influences. Lundberg himself cites Love and Captain Beefheart as stylistic precursors, but the Kinks, the Beatles, the Who, the Byrds, and (most especially) Pink Floyd, among many others, also come to play in the group's expansive, lushly-produced sound..."  

Rolling Stone: "Three albums - huge fun. The Soundtrack of Our Lives - descended from the Swedish MC5 of the late 1980s, Union Carbide Productions - debut in the U.S. with their full library of trips (Hidden Agenda, CD), covering all corners of the modern lysergic-beat vocabulary. Welcome to the Infant Freebase (1996) is a mosaic of raga flair, Italian-B-movie pop corn and full amp fire that rocks one way, from start to finish. Extended Revelation (for the Psychic Weaklings of Western Civilization) (1998) is TSOOL's bridge back to the spaced attack of Hawkwind and '68 Pink Floyd. And Behind the Music (2001) is not a VH1 production but an iridescent ripper bundling more Floyd and early R.E.M. with the mixed-exotica touch of the Beta Band but way louder. Truth in advertising: the song title 'Infra Riot.'"  

High Bias: "The Soundtrack Of Our Lives draw on everything from 60s psychedelia to 70s arena rock to 90s Britpop, from Love and the MC5 to Neil Young and Simon & Garfunkel and every era of the Who... In the increasingly moribund rock galaxy, The Soundtrack of Our Lives is a supernova."  

Spin: "If the Soundtrack of Our Lives really were the soundtrack for living, it would be a lot easier to get up in the morning. Swedish non-garage rock that sounds like Pink Floyd ripping off Wings, Behind the Music is the equivalent of seeing your girlfriend naked in the middle of the afternoon: jarring, sexy, and familiar." .

NME: "The best post-everything six piece space rock band in the history of the eardrum."  

Village Voice: "TSOOL nudge open the gates of rock heaven."  

Noel Gallagher: "Better than anything that's been out in the last six years...That Soundtrack Of Our Lives album, that's mega!"   

Kate Hudson: "I love it. It's just a really great rock and roll band."